Saturday 9 November 2019

Battle of al-Musayfirah 1925

We felt it was time to give the "One Hour Wargame" (OHW) rules by Neil Thomas another airing, Anthony and I both like the fast moving simplicity of this game system and it works well with 54mm toy soldiers.

Looking back through old copies of Wargames Illustrated for inspiration I found a scenario for the Battle of al-Musayfirah in 1925 during the Great Syrian Revolt.   After WW1 The League of Nations had given France a mandate to govern Syria and the French promptly instituted a number of measures to control the local tribes.  This inevitably lead to a nationalist uprising  by the Druze, which spread to the other tribes.



We chose scenario 15 from OHW, Fortified Defence, as it best reflected the actual battle.  Basically, a French Foreign Legion column was ambushed and badly mauled so the survivors took refuge in an old Turkish fort at Suwayda.  A relief column was prepared and an advance party sent forward to set up a defensive position at the town of al-Musayfirah as a staging post for the main column following behind.   A traditional colonial campaign in the finest traditions of P C Wren and Beau Geste, here's how it went:

On the left is the old Turkish fort at Suwayda, the town behind it in the rear centre is  al-Musayfirah, to the right of the town is a rocky area, in the OHW scenario this should be woods but rocks are more suitable for the desert so we just gave them the same terrain effect for movement and combat as woods.

We diced to see what forces each side would get, the French got 3 Inf, 2 Arty and 1 Cav, while the Druze got 3 Inf, 1 Heavy and 2 Cav.  That seemed to represent the original forces quite well, I wasn't sure what to use for the Druze heavy unit, in reality they had some artillery but I couldn't find any references to machine guns or other heavy weapons so a little imagination was called for.

The French start with one unit in the old Turkish fort at Suwayda and one in al-Musayfirah.  The Druze opened the ball with a mass attack on the garrison in the old Turkish fort.  Victory would go to whichever side occupied both the town and fort at the end of 15 turns.

The rules give the two garrisons additional firepower, which reflects the actual battle as the French had machine guns which took a terrible tole on the attackers.   To even things up the Druze have a refit rule which allows them to create a second wave with all their original units at their starting positions, rather like the Zulu wave mechanism we used in our recent Rorke’s Drift game.

The French cavalry came from the collection of veteran wargamer John Ruddle who created them from bits and pieces of old Britains hollow cast Spahis, all repaired and repainted.  Behind them the French Command are represented by Starlux mounted FFL.

The first wave of the Druze attack succeeds in overrunning the defenders in the fort and pushing back the relief column.  At this point they invoked the refit rule, leaving the fort abandoned temporarily while the second wave formed up for a renewed attack.

In the Druze second wave one unit has reoccupied the fort while the main push is directed against the garrison at al-Musayfirah.  Here the remaining infantry and Command, with heavy unit attached, use the cover of the rocky terrain to advance for a mass attack on the town.  The camel borne gun is the handiwork of Ross Macfarlane, as are the fort and town buildings.

The all out assault goes in, Druze mounted units rush the town while the foot provide covering fire from the rocks, will the beleaguered garrison hold out?

As we reached turn 15 and the end of the game, the superior firepower of the French forces carried the day.  A bombardment of the fort drove the Druze defenders out, leaving it unoccupied, while the mounted units caught in the open were wiped out by the French mountain artillery.

Anthony insisted we take a picture of the lunch, l'd like to tell you it was something suitably North African but clearly it's traditional beer and pizza.

The game played out very similar to the real battle, in 1925 the Druze suffered heavy casualties from the French machine gun strongpoints in al-Musayfirah.  They did manage to break into the town and promptly made off with all the columns horses and donkeys, but the attack through the rocks was broken up by a continuous bombardment from French aircraft.

18 comments:

  1. No doubt some Italian recruits in the Legion provided supper.

    Great spahis! I love the look and "romance" of the game (though I'm sure it wasn't terribly romantic for the troops).

    Good to see the old fort in action. Did I ever mention that the gateway came from my old (OLD) Marx Robin Hood castle?

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    1. Don't they say an army marches on it's stomach?

      I did wonder where the gateway came from, I always assumed it was a tunnel entrance from a model railway layout, must go and take another look at it.

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    2. It was from the 54mm version, not the more common 60mm one. The walls were tin-litho with printed crenellations (once you figure that out). My mother was horrified that it wasn't a 'proper' castle and the figures weren't painted. At 6 yrs old I had just had fun with it though its been over a decade I think since the last of the figures saw action.

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  2. Fantastic looking soldiers and scenery. Looks like it was a fun game.
    I don't know the scenario but it looks excellent.

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    1. We have a sort of plan; pick a period, google wiki for the battles, pick a battle that looks interesting, trawl through OHW for a scenario that will match the battle, cobble together the figures and terrain then try and remember to photograph it all.

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  3. I really enjoyed reading your post about this game. It looks like you both had a most enjoyable game. Figures look great.

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    1. Like most of our games it went all the way to the wire and was a very close run thing. You can't beat a splash of colour on the table.

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  4. Looks like another excellent game Brian! Beautiful terrain and figures as usual! Did you actually utilize the camel gun? How did he handle the recoil?

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    1. The camel gun was always in the thick of the fighting, being a ship of the desert the camel just rolled with the recoil!

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    2. I love it! Now I've got to build one for my next desert campaign! Thanks Brian!

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  5. Great looking action. I liked the geographically appropriate substitution of rocky 'bad lands' for the woods on the original scenario.

    I played this once as WW2 Russian front battle, in which I had the attacking Russians. The first wave was wiped out, pretty much, but did just enough damage that the second wave - barely! - prevailed.

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    1. It's surprising how finely balanced the outcome of these OHW scenarios can be, we have it in mind to play the same scenario in several different periods to see how the subtle changes in the rules affect the outcome.

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  6. Beautiful game Brian and lovely Forts - I collected a few of this Britains Legion / Arab range as a child before they vanished from the shops. They look very good en masse.

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    1. Curiously I never collected the Deetail Arabs, but I always used to pick up odd figures when I found them cheap in junk boxes at shows, usually with an arm missing. The idea was that I'd use them as the basis for conversions to Pathans, then one day I realised I'd never get around to doing that, fortunately a firm in Agentina, DSG, reissued the Arab arms and for a small additional outlay I had a whole Arab army overnight!

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  7. More excellent photos of another wonderful game! Many thanks Brian, glad you took the food picture so others can see how well you look after me! And has already been said, there's just something about the look of Britains Deetail en masse that can't be beat. Why do I always end up wishing I had your figures?!

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    1. we really ought to theme the food to the game, mind you that would rule out any games with cannibals or zombies!

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  8. Great looking game Brian and some beaut photos. I was pleased to spy those Timpo camelry!
    Beer and pizza well-deserved!

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    1. After a long hard morning of playing with toy soldiers you need a good meal!

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